Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor of Economics

Ph.D., Purdue University

Email: prubin @ emory.edu
Telephone: (404) 727-6365
Curriculum Vitae

Areas of Interest
My main area of research is Law and Economics.  I have written on many aspects of this subject.  Recent papers have examined the effects of tort reform on death rates (tort reform leads to fewer accidental deaths) and the deterrent effect of capital punishment (it is a significant deterrent).  I have also completed a survey article on the economics of the Bill of Rights.  (These papers have been coauthored with colleagues at Emory.)  A few years ago I completed a book on the evolution of economic and political behavior.  I also write on policy issues, and have had several op-eds in the Wall Street Journal and other newspapers.  Two favored topics are the regulation of pharmaceuticals and the economics of privacy and information.

Selected Publications

Books

Darwinian Politics: The Evolutionary Origin of Freedom, Rutgers University Press, Rutgers Series in Human Evolution, 2002.

Privacy and the Commercial Use of Personal Information , Kluwer Academic Publishers and Progress and Freedom Foundation, foreword by Senator Orin Hatch, with Thomas Lenard, 2001.

Journals

"Pharmaceutical Marketing: Medical and Industry Biases," Journal of Pharmaceutical Finance, Economics & Policy, v. 13, no. 2, 2004, 65-78.

"Micro and Macro Legal Efficiency: Supply and Demand," Supreme Court Economic Review Vol. 13, 2005, 19-34.

"Public Choice and Tort Reform," Public Choice, Special issue "Policy Challenges and Political Responses: Public Choice Perspectives on the Post-9/11 World," Edited by William F. Shughart II and Robert D. Tollison, V.124, Numbers 1-2, July 2005, 223 - 236.

"Fitness, Utility, and Immigration: Reply to Salter," Journal of Bioeconomics, V. 9, No. 1, June, 2007, 53-67.

"An Empirical Study of Public Defender Effectiveness: Self-Selection by the ‘Marginally Indigent," Ohio State Journal of Criminal Law, 2005, with Morris Hoffman and Joanna M. Shepherd, 223-255.

"Judicial Hierarchies and the Rule-Individual Tradeoff," Supreme Court Economic Review, with Hugo Mialon and Joel Schrag, V. 15, 2007, 3-20 (Lead article).

"Tort Reform and Accidental Deaths," Journal of Law and Economics, with Joanna Shepherd, v. 50, No. 2, May, 2007, 221-238 (Lead article).

"The Economics of Crime," in Foundations and Trends in Microeconomics, with Erling Eide and Joanna Shepherd, vol. 2, no. 2, 291–363, 2006.

"When Little Things Mean a Lot: On the Inefficiency of Item Pricing Laws," Journal of Law and Economics, with Mark Bergen, Daniel Levy, Sourav Ray, and Benjamin Zeliger, forthcoming.

"Evolved Behaviors, Recursive Hierarchies, And The Growth Of The State," Tidsskriftet Politik, V. 9, No. 4, February 2007, 48-55.

For a full list of Professor Rubin's Publications, please see his Curriculum Vitae.